Here Without You
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Dom and Letty only had a short amount of time together as a couple, but it was enough to miss each other once she was gone. Dotty. OneShot.


_This is probably one of the most well-known and overplayed song by 3 Doors Down, but it's still one of my favourites. I was having a marathon of all their songs the other day and this happened. I hope you guys enjoy it. I tried to make it a little angsty, but that's not my strongest suit. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the song that the title came from. _

_A hundred days have made me older_  
><em>Since the last time that I've seen you're pretty face<em>

When it was realized that Leticia Ortiz was actually going to moving to a completely different country for an indefinite amount of time, Dominic Toretto realized that he wasn't going to be able to dance around it anymore. Two weeks before she left, he had taken her to the garage after everyone had left, sat her on the hood of a 1970 Chevelle SS that he and the boys were working on and had started kissing her. At first she had been surprised and had pushed him away firmly. Her eyes had narrowed as she scanned his face, searching for something, maybe to see if he had really meant to kiss her. When she saw no sign of regret on his face, she had grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back toward her. Her legs had hooked around his waist and his arms surrounded her, holding her soft body against his hard one.

The two had been close before, but they were inseperable for the next two weeks. The change between them was evident, and although all of their friends were happy about it, they didn't say anything. Dom and Letty were very similar in the sense that they were private, and didn't like to talk about their feelings. So rather than address whatever was going on, they celebrated in private, and gave them as much time alone as possible.

_A thousand lies have made me colder_  
><em>And I don't think I can look at this the same<em>  
><em>But all miles that seperate<em>  
><em>Disappear now when I'm dreaming of your face<em>

"You know she leaves in two days, Dominic," Ricky Toretto said quietly from where he was washing dishes. His nineteen year old son tensed next to him, although he quickly tried to cover it up by reaching for the frying pan that was on the washing rack, wiping it down with the tee-towel. "What are you going to do when she leaves?"

"What do you mean?" Dom asked, acting as though he didn't know what his father was relating too.

"I'm not stupid, son," Ricky raised his eyebrows. "I know that you two aren't working on cars when you're at the garage until eleven-thirty at night."

"We're just fooling around," Dom muttered.

"I hope that you're just lying to me, boy, and not to yourself," Ricky sighed as he went back to the dishes.

_I'm here without you, baby  
><em>_But you're still on my lonely mind  
><em>_I think about you, baby  
><em>_And I dream about you all the time_

Saying goodbye to Letty at the airport was one of the hardest things that Dom had had to do. And Dom could see that it was just as hard on Letty. She said goodbye to everyone, starting with the boys, then Ricky, Mia and finally Dom. She had plastered this wide smile on her face but her eyes were sad. Everyone pretended to strike up conversation to give them some privacy, turning to look out the floor length windows where planes were coming into the runways. Dom had pulled her in close to his body, her head tucked into his chest. He felt her take in a shaky breath and it made his chest tighten. As they pulled away he tipped her chin upward and kissed her hard and long, his tongue flicking over her lower lip tasting her for as long as he could without being deemed too publicly inappropriate.

On the plane, Letty felt tears gather in her eyes as it began accelerating up the runway. She had had a small crush on Dom since she was fifteen, but she had never thought that it would be anything more than friendship. She had been pushing down her feelings for him to the point where they would only raise to the surface under certain circumstances; like when he pulled off his shirt in the shop or they fell asleep together on the couch, and his arm wrapped around her waist. But then when he had kissed her, everything had flooded back and had then tripled.

Now she was trying to figure if it really was for the best that Dom had kissed her.

Because now she knew what she was going to be missing.

_I'm here without you, baby  
><em>_But you're still with me in my dreams  
><em>_And tonight it's only you and me, yeah_

"Letty? Letty, _mi dulce_?" Arleta Ortiz called from the kitchen. There was no response from her daughter and she frowned, walking into the lounge where she was sitting. Letty was curled up in the corner of the couch, facing the TV but her eyes were a million miles away. Arleta leaned against the door-frame and reached out to wave her hand in front of the TV, and her daughters eyes snapped up. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Letty cleared her throat and blinked. "What's up?"

"We're going down to the hospital now," Arleta repeated what she had been saying before realizing that her daughter wasn't responding. "Did you want to change or are you happy going down in those clothes?"

"I'll be fine," Letty said, getting up from the couch and grabbing her sweatshirt that was hanging over the back. Arleta watched her daughter quietly as the girl pulled on the sweatshirt and then pulled her hair out from underneath the collar. Letty walked past her mother to the front door, her head tilted downward as she walked into the warm day. It had been almost two weeks since they had moved to the Dominican Republic, and that well-known glow that was always in her daughters eyes had started fading the minute the plane had taken off out of LA. Arleta knew for a fact that it had more than a little bit to do with the Cuban boy who had lived down the street from them.

_The miles just keep rollin'  
><em>_As the people leave their way to say hello  
><em>_I've heard this life is overrated  
><em>_But I hope that it get's better as we go_

"You're going to have to talk to me sooner or later," Ricky said. Dom glanced at his father sideways as he helped him with the barbeque. Vince Martin and Leon Eppes were making lots of noise behind the two, throwing a football back and forth, skillfully avoiding the dancing hands of Jesse Lomas. "And I'm leaning toward the sooner, given you've been acting shittier than your sister when it's her time of month." Ricky hardly ever swore and Dom raised his eyebrows.

"Don't want to talk about it, pops," Dom murmured.

"Well, have you talked to her?" Ricky asked.

"And said what, exactly?" Dom snorted. "Me and Let don't really talk..."

"What are you on about?" Ricky flipped over the steaks that were on the barbeque. "You two talk more than Mia when she has her friends over."

"Yeah, but not..." Dom squinted. "Not about that stuff."

"Well it's about time to start," Ricky pointed the spatula at his son. "It took you long enough to show her how you feel, and now that she's not around for you to show her, you have to tell her."

_I'm here without you baby  
><em>_But you're still on my lonely mind_

"Letty?" Dom laid back against his pillows, the cordless home phone pressed to his ear. "You there?"

"Yeah, sorry," Letty's voice filtered through the speaker. "Mum keeps trying to get me to help with baking. The aunties and cousins are all over to help because there is more family flying in to stay." Dom chuckled.

"Don't they know that you made the microwave explode when you were trying to make two minutes noodles?" He asked with a grin.

"Hey, man! That was one time!" Letty had been distracted and had tipped out the contents of her noodle packet into a bowl of hot water and then put it into the microwave. She had turned the dial on the microwave and walked away. Leon had then gone into the kitchen a couple of minutes later and the microwave was sparking and smoking because she had left the the tin foil flavoring packet in the bowl. The two were quiet for a moment and the smile faded from Dom's face as a more serious tone entered the conversation.

"How's your grandma doing?" He asked quietly.

"She's not so good," Letty murmured. "It's so...Weird seeing her like this." She let out a long, shaky breath on the other end of the phone. "She was always so strong, you know? It's really hard to see her like this." Dom didn't know what to say, he really wasn't one for words when it came to things like this. He remembered Mrs Ortiz, she had been out to visit a few times when Letty and her mother had moved to LA. Up until the age of eight, Letty and her mother had lived with her grandmother in the DR, and they had all been very close. Whenever Letty had talked about her grandmother, it had always been with fondness and when she had come to visit, it was obvious how much she cared for the older woman. A couple of years ago, the visits had stopped, and that had been the first indication of her declining health. "I need to go to sleep, I'm pretty tired."

"Yeah, uh, Let?" Dom winced at how cheesy he was about to sound. "You know you can always talk to me if you need to. Dad's fine with the phone bill. Just text me if you need to talk, and I'll ring you straight away."

"Thanks, Dom," Letty's voice was soft and he found himself smiling on his end of the phone again.

_I think about you, baby  
><em>_And I dream about you all the time  
><em>_I'm here without you, baby  
><em>_But you're still with me in my dreams  
><em>_And tonight, girl, it's only you and me_

Letty and her mother were on their way home from the hospital when they got the call that her grandmother had passed. Even though they had both known that this was coming but that didn't make it any easier. Arleta couldn't drive any further, so she had pulled over to the side of the road and Letty had driven the rest of the way home. Two of her aunties came out of the house as they pulled up, surrounding them with kisses and hugs. Her cousins were the same, all comforting each other and reaching out for Letty. She dodged around their hands and made her way quickly into the house, shutting the guest bedroom door firmly. Her body was flushing hot and cold as she laid down on the bed, her legs tucked up to her chest. She stared blankly at the wall, her hands shaking.

It took her a long time, but she finally fell into a fitful sleep.

Everything was still wrong in her dreams, her grandma—who had taught her how to ride a bike and had sewn up multiple pairs of pants and shirts when she had ripped them playing—was still gone. But at least in her mind she had Dom. He was holding her close, his strong arms surronding her smaller body. He didn't say anything to her—neither of them were good with words. But his presence was enough.

When Letty woke up, her cheeks were still wet with tears.

_Everything I know, and anywhere I go  
><em>_It gets hard, but it won't take away my love_

"Yo, Mi!" Dom skipped the last three steps of the staircase and turned to face the lounge where his sister was sitting. "Have you heard from Letty? I haven't talked to her in about two days." Mia locked her jaw and tilted her head to the side as she looked at her brother. It was clear from her expression that he was missing something. "What?" Dom asked.

"Her grandma died the other night," Mia said quietly. Jesse looked up from where he was sitting on the ground with the PS4 controller in his hand.

"Shit, really?" The younger boy said. Mia nodded.

"Yeah, it's pretty shit—I thought she would have told you," she said, directing the last part of her sentence to Dom. He breathed out through his nose and scratched the back of his head.

"Nah, uh," he stared out the window over his sisters head. "She hasn't called or text me in a couple of days." Mia nodded again, more slowly this time. "Do you know when the funeral is?"

"I think on Saturday?"

That was two days away.

Dom heard his dads car pull up into the driveway and he was out the front door in a second.

_And when the last one falls  
><em>_When's it's all said and done  
><em>_It gets hard but it won't take away my love_

Letty hated dresses. She hated makeup. And she hated high heels. Today she had to deal with all of those things together. The house had just been under a cloud of depression, filled with family who had travelled for hours to get there today. Arleta kept trying to get Letty to come into the lounge, to be with the family, but Letty didn't process things like that, she didn't want to be surrounded by people. The funeral had been a sordid affair, sobs and wails filling the air. The wake was back at the house, which was where they were now.

"Letty, sweetheart," Arleta leaned against the doorway. "This is the time to with our familia. We support each other at this time." Letty chewed down on her lip and looked up at her mother. "Baby," Arleta came into the room and sat down on the bed beside her daughter. "I know this is hard, but we all need to be there for one another." There was a knock on the door.

"Arleta? There's a boy here." It was one of her mothers second cousins. Arleta kissed her daughter on the cheek and left the bedroom. Letty picked at the hem of her short dress, slowly lifted her eyes when she heard footsteps coming back down the hall. She assumed that it was her mother, coming back to drag her out into the public. But it wasn't. Letty's mouth dropped open as she saw Dom standing in her doorway. He looked uncomfortable, wearing a pair of dark colored pants and a white button down shirt. He gave her a nervous half smile that made her stomach flip-flop and as he came into the room, she felt a fresh wave of tears spring to her eyes. The smile fell from his face as he saw her tears and his steps quickened, sitting down next to her on the bed and putting an arm around her.

"I can't believe you're here, Dom," Letty choked out.

"You didn't call me when you needed me," Dom murmured against her hair. "So I had to improvise."

_I'm here without you, baby  
><em>_But you're still on my lonely mind  
><em>_I think about you, baby  
><em>_And I dream about you all the time_

Arleta left Letty alone in the bedroom with Dom, seeming to run interference for the rest of the family who kept wanting to find out who the boy was in their 'cousin Letty's' room. Dom held her tight, rolling them back onto the mattress and curling his body around hers. The room darkened as the sun went down, neither of them moving to close the window and curtains. The house became louder as the night went on and people became more drunk, and Letty got up once to go toliet, and then she closed the door when she came back. Dom wrapped himself around her once again. They fell asleep some time after two, Letty snuggling her body in close to his solid chest.

They woke up early, given the curtains were still wide open, and Dom shuffled back on the bed, rolling Letty over onto her back so that she was staring up at him. Her makeup was smudged and there were dry tears on her cheeks, but she was still absolutely gorgeous. Dom pushed away a strand of hair that had fallen over her eye, tucking it behind her ear.

"Do you..." Letty swallowed hard. "Do you think that it was a good idea for us to...Ya know?"

"I don't regret a thing," Dom replied.

"I don't know how long we're going to be here," Letty murmured. "It feels like home being back here. I need to stay here for my mum...And for my _familia_, at least for now." Dom tried not to sigh, and he reached down to press a soft kiss to her mouth.

"I know, Let," he whispered.

"You'll wait for me?" She asked, not able to meet his eyes. He put a finger under her chin, tilting her head back so that she was forced to look up at him.

"I'll be waiting for you, Let."

_I'm here without you, baby  
><em>_But you're still with me in my dreams  
><em>_And tonight, girl, it's only you and me_

_Hope you guys enjoyed it. Let me know what you think :)_


End file.
